Celestron Motor Drive for Manual EQ Telescope – AstroMaster, PowerSeeker

Works great on my Orion 130ST EQ. I had to use Southern hemisphere setting due to way previous owner set up the mount. Worked perfectly after that.

I have purchased two of these, one for use on a Tasco 60mm telescope that I bought three decades ago, and one for use on a much sturdier Celestron - PowerSeeker 80EQ that I bought from Amazon about a year ago. Both of these scopes have equatorial mounts, which are necessary for a motor drive like this. This motor drive fits very well on both of them, since they are very similar. The motor drive comes with two brackets, to fit two different spacings of equatorial mount, and one might be able to make a special bracket if their equatorial mount is a little different. This motor drive takes away the very tedious need to hand turn the adjustment for the right ascension (“time”) axis in order to keep a celestial object in the center of the view as the earth rotates. The drive uses a clock motor, adjustable in its turning speed and strong in its torque, to subtly synchronize the movement of the scope to the movement of the earth. This enables a person to put a camera on a telescope and follow an object smoothly, without the jerking and center fixing that is inevitable when one follows an object using hand adjustments. While I do have a small computerized telescope, adding this motor drive to a manual telescope is simpler, lighter, more compact, and quite similarly satisfying. It isn't that difficult to find an object and focus in on it, if one uses a star chart or program as a guide, but with this drive it is also not difficult to keep the object centered in the scope as the earth continuously turns. What a relief.

The Celestron motor drive is very cool and very, very "small".... Received it overnight.. as usual.. from Amazon.com Had already downloaded the insructions from The Celestron website. so I was familar with the unit and the installation instructions.... Proceeded to install the unit... OH MY!!! the RA shaft is TO BIG for the coupling.. a defective unit.. you say.. bad engineering....I was NOT a Happy Camper ... Called Celsetron "CS" and was greeted with a 20 minute wait.. was finally connected to a fellow.. explained the issue... He said.. I don't know what the problem is as I have a unit right in front of me and the hole is fine.. it should fit the RA shaft with no problem... I mentioned it looked like the hole had a metal sleave which made the diameter to small to fit.. .. Too bad.. He said...send it back.. to us or Amazon.. So.. being a "problem solver" by nature... I removed the coupling from the motor shaft and took a closer look at at the rubber coupling which has two screw holes... one at each end.. I reversed the two screws and it fit.. The screws were assembled in reverse order at the factory... in China..of course.... as they are both the same diameter.. How "nice" for them. So being a good "Amazon" customer... to help save my fellow customers some grief.. I called back to Celesrton and informed them of my findings.. AND... What do you think they said... OH YES... we are aware of that problem.. Well.. it appears I talked to the guy who did not get the memo.. as the second person was female... who knew all about the issue . good job... young lady.. and she expalined the fix... I called to tell them about.. When you receive your unit.. look at the rubber coulping at one end.. if the large finger screw is on the end with a metal sleave .. it is reversed... remove the coupling from the motor shaft . and reverse the screws.. replacing the small "allan set scew" at the end end with the metal sleave... THEN... the other end of the coupling will fit the RA shaft.. the one with the finger screw as as it has a larger diameter. This may sound like "greek"..BUT, when you look at the unit you will understand.. and the unit will function as designed.. If the end with the "finger screw" has no metal sleave..you are "good to go".. I was told a significant number of unts have this flaw.. the luck of the draw...for you Hold your applause.. please

It's pretty amazing, I'm just confused a bit on the speed. I'll keep practicing on that and hope I get some good photos in the future of deep sky objects!

I recently bought a Celestron 127eq. So I purchased this with the hope that it would assist me in tracking objects through the night sky as I venture into the realm of astronomy/astrophotography. Here's what I found out. The Good: Cheap - It's definitely cheap compared to your $500-$1000+ motorized equitorial mounts. Lightweight - As far as extra equipment goes, this is a small add-on to improve your telescope without adding a lot of weight. Battery operated - 9 volt batteries are easy and small to carry. Tracking - Well... it tracks. Point your scope at Saturn, or Jupiter, adjust the speed and you're good to go. It will keep your scope pointed at them. The Bad: Construction - It's made from plastic so you get what you pay for. It's going off of a 9 volt battery so you really can't expect too much. Tracking - Yes... I said it tracks but if you're under the impression that this will accurately track for you to be able to take long exposure shots with a dslr attached, it won't. Trying to fine tune the speed to exactly match the rotation of the earth is next to impossible. Strength - Adding the weight of any camera equipment slows the motor down and makes it struggle throwing off your previously set speed. The battery draining also has an effect on it. Conclusion: This is great if you're just wanting to observe things. It does excellent for that. But if you plan on any kind of photography, you would be better off saving up and getting a better tripod and mount. If it seems like everyone says that, it's because they are right. I didn't listen to them and opted for cheaper with this. Well, I came back to say that they were right and I was wrong(I can't believe I just publicly admitted that). You don't wanna be stuck with this. Just get the better mount unless accurate tracking isn't too important for you.

Not only does this inexpensive little guiding motor simply work...it has a (very tiny) button to adjust the drive rate. There are two brackets for different types of Celestron mounts...CG-2 and CG-3. But wait! There's MORE! One of the brackets fit my Orion Min-EQ (EQ-1) mount perfectly. I recognized this from the picture at Amazon and from searching the web. You won't get high-accuracy tracking for long-exposure photos or long-term viewing (But, what do I know?! Maybe you WILL!). But this motor will allow tracking a wider fields of view through a telescope and wide-field photography, as long as you can set your equatorial mount up to align with the celestial poles. The motor is noisy.... But who cares?!

Works very well on my 70mm Orion refractor EQ mount. Fits perfectly. I set the RA against a wall clock for 20 minutes and adjusted the drive for fast or slow.

I used this on a very old (non-super) Polaris (Vixen) mount from the 80s. It was easy to install, and did exactly what I needed -- keep the scope more or less centered for a bunch of viewers at a star party. You won't be doing astrophotography with this, but it kept things in view for :30, making life much easier for me. One thing to note is there is no "disengage" for the motor, so you can't really use slow motion controls on that axis if the clutch is locked (you will be turning against the motor). No big deal for my use as I had a wide field scope on the mount, but could be for your particular scenario.

Alles sehr gut

Muy bien equipo para los que no nos conformamos con ver sólo la luna. Se ven los anillos de Saturno a la perfección incluso se ven galaxias y nebulosas con una buena óptica. Las lentes que trae son las propias para iniciarse. Le he acoplado el motor de rotación y va genial

I need to drive my telescope for planet and moon pictures. I've not set up the 10Mpixel camera yet, but manually adjusting the drive speed, gets real close to ideal. Just fine for simply viewing the stars. Ran for hours on a 9 volt battery and still going. Note, you have to readjust the telescope every1/2 hour to avoid interferrence and parts running into each other. Guess a manual telescope is just not made for hours of continuously running on a motorized drive.

On time delivery. Easy to install.

Easily fitted to my Cellestron telescope. Works well. Thought it didn't work at first but the whole reason of this item is to track the movement of planets. Forgot that the movement is so slow. Once I realised this I found it very accurate in following planets. I am more than happy with the purchase.